Our members have been researching and preserving and publishing their own families and British Columbia’s families since 1971. This year, 2011, is our Society’s 40th anniversary.

The British Columbia Genealogical Society has been on the World Wide Web since 1996. This will soon be our new website – it’s not yet complete. This is the link to our ‘old’ BCGS website. You will find more there, but please have a look at what’s here first.

We welcome new members and visitors and invite you to see what we offer on-line and at our BCGS Walter Draycott Library in Surrey, BC and at our monthly meetings in Burnaby, BC.

Please visit our Research, Walter Draycott Library and Membership sections to see what resources are available to you.

CSGA is joining the future. Starting today we hope to keep the California Genealogical community up to date on great upcoming events, legislation that affects the genealogical community, California indexing projects, great websites and publications for California researchers. We will search out California resources and after telling you all about them we will link them to our online California Research Guide.

Watch also for CSGA sponsored contests to promote California Projects for both individuals and societies. Share with us. Leave comments, send ideas of websites and publications to review. Add your events to the CSGA calendar and we’ll highlight the most exciting.

Check out the bloggers. If you’d like to join the CSGA blogging team send an email to webmanager@csga.com or projects@csga.com and we’ll welcome you to the team.

This blog is an attempt to keep the issue of copyright in front of the genealogical community. I’ve been writing and speaking about copyright issues for the genealogical community for the last ten years. From the beginning it has been a popular and controversial topic, but recent sessions have been so well attended that potential participants being turned away. I wish this was because I am a fantastic speaker, but the reality is that the community really wants to understand the issues at hand.

Such was the case at the FGS Conference in Springfield this month. The talk was on Wednesday morning and throughout the rest of the conference I was stopped on a regular basis by attendees, some jokingly opining that they should give up because they couldn’t use anything in their genealogies, some stating that they had done everything wrong but would try to do better, others happy that they could stop others from using their material. There were also many that had information and websites to share. The exciting thing was that everyone seemed enthused by the topic, and wanted wanted to discuss one point or another.

Among those sitting in the room was Dick Eastman, who made copyright a topic for his newsletter last week. See Copyright Myths . The thread of questions and comments resulting from this newsletter are very telling and show some of the misunderstandings that exist.

It is my intention to use this new blog to explore the idiosyncrasies of copyright, post updates to copyright issues and create links to great copyright websites. First, however, I plan to take a much needed vacation to recover from managing the finances for Springfield. Check back in a few weeks for the next installment.

I started the blog North Country Chronicles to pay homage to my ancestors, who deserve recognition for the hard work and effort they put into making their lives and the lives of others better. Moreover, I myself have many fond summertime memories growing up spending time hiking the Presidentials with my father and visiting relatives in beauteous Randolph, NH in Coos County. I plan to continue to post stories of the people who lived in Coos County, as time permits. Also, I’m working on updating the details of my ancestors ( some of whom are mentioned in these posts ) and will include profiles of their stories with genealogical information.

About Thomas MacEntee

What happens when a “tech guy” with a love for history gets laid off during The Great Recession of 2008? You get Thomas MacEntee, a genealogy professional who’s also a blogger, educator, author, social media connector, online community builder and more.
Thomas was laid off after a 25-year career in the information technology field, so he started his own genealogy-related business called High Definition Genealogy. He also created an online community of over 3,000 family history bloggers known as GeneaBloggers. His most recent endeavor, Hack Genealogy, is an attempt to “re-purpose today’s technology for tomorrow’s genealogy.”
Thomas describes himself as a lifelong learner with a background in a multitude of topics who has finally figured out what he does best: teach, inspire, instigate, and serve as a curator and go-to-guy for concept nurturing and inspiration. Thomas is a big believer in success, and that we all succeed when we help each other find success.